Today the 20th of August 2009, I finally vacated the hostel and to my surprise, I was actually feeling really sad and depressed about it. A part of me will always belong there because it was my home for 5 long years. I used to grunt and stomp around, I know, saying that I don't have the freedom to do ANYTHING and all that bullshit, but somehow, staying there with all "ma girls" made it a lot fun. Yesterday was the last time I was doing a lot of things: last time having dinner, praying the common prayer, jumping around and yelling without a care in the world, teasing the rest and being teased,...sigh! "Ma girls" could not believe that I was actually leaving coz I've been there even before all of them had come. "You going?!!- TOMORROW!!-so fast!!-go after onam!!-why so fast?!!", were the usual dialogues to which I tried to cheerfully smile and respond by saying, "Hey, I've stayed here loooong enough, dun't ya think?"
Yesterday was wednesday and we all gathered on the terrace for the common prayer. The sky was beautiful and the stars were shining bright. For once, I didn't doze off during prayer because I knew that it was my last here. At the end while we stretched out our hands and legs my Sister warden officially announced that I was leaving the next day. With everyone's eyes on me, I felt glad that it was dark and there was just a small bulb lighting up the place. Sister said a lot of nice things about me, which, I must admit, sounded really unbelievable to my ears. The rest listened to it and looked at me with awe. Then they requested me to sing a few malayalam songs which I had tried to learn and which I had modified in my own way to make people laugh (among them my master piece is the malayalam version of the titanic song). Ma girls then sang a song dedicated to me which could have made me cry if I had not lost the ability to shed tears. I gulped once or twice though because I was feeling heavy somewhere in the chest region and wanted to get rid of it. After the song, there was complete silence to which I responded by saying, "Ehhhhh, Thanks". Nobody moved or even uttered a word and that's when I realised that they were expecting me to say more. I cleared my throat and said a few words which I made sure didn't sound like a church sermon.
While getting in the car I looked back and thought to myself, "That place was no ordinary hostel but it was a home for people like me."
